click picture for more images from David LaChapelle’s “American Jesus” series

Whenever I compare MJ to JC people fall all over themselves scoffing. They’ll usually say something like, “How can you compare the Son of God to a pop star???!!!” I return their scoff with a scoffier scoff and then say, “I can compare the two because of relativity. Relativity allows us to compare all sorts of diverse objects because all things, no matter how seemingly divergent, are connected by this fascinating force that is also the fastest—much faster than light, like infinitely faster—thing we know and that is space.”

Space is the : in the ratio between one bit of matter and another bit of matter. It facilitates relationships between all sorts of things, things as different as a blade of grass and a Nintendo Game Boy. But what makes these two things different? Well, for starters they look different, feel different, smell different, taste different and function differently so naturally we think they are fundamentally different. But really, since they are both material objects, they are actually fundamentally similar. The so-called fundamental differences are no more than superficial layers of relative distinctions. A blade of grass in a universe that includes nothing but blades of grass ceases to be a blade of grass. There would be no relative distinctions (black is black because white is white, dark is dark because light is light; it is the contrast that defines the two, the contrast exposes the lie that is duality). Oh, but wait…the particles that comprise a blade of grass are relatively different than one another. Well, once again, not really, because despite their makeup, the most common denominator is the fact that each particle is simply a thing. It is relativity that tricks us into thinking that they are more. It is relativity that lies to us about the ‘true’ nature of our world because relativity is……THE DEVIL!!! DUN DUN DUNNNN!!!!!!LIES, LIES, MORE LIES AND ONE TRUTH!!!

This film clip was made using a technique called time-lapse photography where an image is captured every few seconds, minutes, hours, days and sometimes years. The images are later complied sequentially and played back. This method allows us to witness the living, breathing, purpose-driven truth of the plant’s existence. Actually…wait a minute…how can this video represent truth when so much of the plant’s existence has been omitted? Really, we are only witnessing ‘one’ truth. Even if we were there, on location, watching this in real time we would still only be witnessing one particle of truth.

Damn. Seems there is no way for us to see ‘the whole truth.’ Well, there is one way. If we were able to perceive matter as space does we could see the whole truth. Space is the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-everywhere force. The only one true thing (well, actually, relativity is also ‘the only one true thing,’ but I’m gonna wait until later to confuse you with that). Oh, and yes, I’m equating space to God. For the sake of this article relativity is the Devil and space is God.

Okay, I’m thoroughly confused now.

Oh hey there alter-ego, my most loyal reader.

Your only reader.

This is true. Why are you confused?

You’re saying the Devil is relativity and God is space, does that mean relativity is evil and space is good?

Well, just think about it: the Devil is famously known as a trickster. You know how the Baudelaire bit goes: The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he did not exist. That’s kind of like relativity, and then you have space which cuts through and encompasses all matter. But to be honest, the God/Devil stuff is really just a marketing ploy. People respond to it. Quite passionately actually. Thought I could woo ’em with the references.

You know that’s not gonna work, right?

Yeah, I know, I’ve been maintaining this blog for almost four years now and I am well aware of the fact that it has become nothing more than a photo bank. People don’t come here for the posts, they come here for the pictures, this one in particular. Don’t ask me why that one is so damn popular.

I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. You tend to do that and every damn time you are let down. I don’t want to see you go crazy and end up BACK in that psych ward.

Hey, quiet now.

Come on, why beat around the bush, you tried to kill yourse—

Can you please leave now? I have an article to write.

Okay, I’m sorry. Go ahead.

All right, where was I? Oh yes…relative diversity (the details). Relative diversity cleverly obfuscates the truth about our existence which is that……what the hell am I doing? Seriously, what the hell am I doing? Just wasting my damn life away writing about stuff nobody cares about. And the pitifully sad thing is I cannot stop. I cannot stop reiterating the same damn thing over and over again hoping that it will make sense to someone and that that someone will save me from this listless, penniless, hapless, aggressively dependent existence. But that will never happen. I’m stuck in this world of madness.

Hey, what are you doing? I know I talk a lot of shit, but please get back to your relativity space stuff. You’re scaring me.

Why? Who the hell cares?

You care, and that’s all that matters.

But for how long? This stuff is gonna do me in.

It doesn’t have to. Just put aside the bitterness and do what you do. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to handle the scrutiny of actual readers. So come on, tell us, I mean me, more about the Space God and the Relativity Devil.

Are you mocking me?

No. Look, I get it. You’re troubled. You’ve made some mistakes. But this isn’t about you right now so stop fucking whining. You have something inside you that’s unique. Crazy as shit, but unique and necessary. You gotta share your passion man. To hell with the naysayers. Just let it out. And besides, it’s not about their understanding, it’s about yours. Also stop actin’ so damn self-important. You don’t even have readers ‘to’ dismiss you. Okay, now carry on.

Okay, I’ll try, here we go……relative diversity cleverly obfuscates the truth about our existence which is that space is the most dominant thing, even though there is an infinite amount of both it and matter.

Okay, first of all, I was really hoping you weren’t gonna say ‘obfuscate’ again. Secondly, what if there were no matter? Does space still exist then? It’s kind of like that ‘tree falling in the woods’ bit.

Well, if there weren’t any matter to ‘perceive’ space theoretically it would not exist. There would be no ‘there’ there.

But space would be there.

Well space is kind of the opposite of ‘there.’ We, as in matter, represent ‘thereness.’

Oh, so perception literally ‘creates’ reality?

Exactly, and to make it even more confusing, without space there is no reality to be perceived. Matter needs space to see and be seen. Without space I cannot see, I cannot hear, I cannot taste, I cannot smell, planets cannot orbit stars, light cannot illuminate; everyTHING needs space.

Okay, next question…do we affect space? You know, like when you drop an ice cube into a glass of water filled to the brim it spills over the edge. Do we cause space to overflow?

Awesome question, I’m gonna let Carl take it though…

Oh, I see. Matter is chiefly composed of nothing so that means we are more nothing than something which means we are full of space. The same substance that surrounds us is also within us.

YES!!! YES!!! BY GOD YES!!!

But still, we ARE something and there is a lot of something around us, even if it is made up of mostly space, it and us are still some ‘thing.’

We are ‘barely’ a thing. We are (like all things) a bundle of very busy particles. And all these particles are holding onto each other for dear life. We are never truly together. Here’s some more time-lapse awesomeness to drive this point home…

Tell me about it. Sometimes I wish everything would disappear and I could have space all to myself. But that’s not likely to happen. There’s too much something out there.

An infinity of something.

But how is that even possible? Wouldn’t space be full if matter was infinite?

It’s all relative. Look at it this way…let’s say I have a small garden where I grow carrots and tomatoes and let’s say every year my yield is 12:4, 12 carrots to 4 tomatoes. Let’s say this happens every year for infinity. Although the ratio favors the carrots the tomatoes will still exist infinitely. For the sake of simplicity I kept the ratio rigid. Of course there is fluctuation in the universe. The consistent thing is the ‘:.’

Oh, okay, I understand, it’s confusing, but it makes sense at the same time.

It isn’t created. It just is. We don’t occupy it. There are no walls in space so we are not ‘inside’ of it. We are part of it. In essence we are nowhere. We don’t really exist. It is our perception that drives the illusion that we are indeed somewhere.

O…kay?

I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but just think about it…even if this existence of ours was a computer simulation the simulation would still need space (virtual space, but space nonetheless) to exist. At the top of this article when I was comparing a blade of grass to a Game Boy you probably imagined the objects; you ‘saw’ them in your personal virtual space, not in the actual space around you. Our imaginations are incredibly spacious. We can imagine massive objects like a football stadium even though our material brains do not have the capacity to hold an actual stadium. We can store volumes upon volumes of information as well. Virtual space makes this possible. But does this virtual space exist within our brains? Perhaps the better question is: does our imagination (virtual matter) exist within our brains?

Well the effects of brain damage kinda prove that it does. Get hit on the head one good time and you forget all sorts of stuff..

Just because an antenna is broken doesn’t mean radio signals cease to exist. Antennas are merely receivers of the signals. Here, try this out real quick: Imagine someone rubbing your back. Very gently. Easy circular strokes. Close your eyes, really get into it. Now open your eyes, get up and go look out of the window. Don’t imagine this part, really get up and go to the window. Okay, now imagine a mass of flying saucers hovering in the sky. Thousands of ’em. Now imagine a purple dragon swooping into view, imagine the dragon taking out the saucers with powerful bursts of neon green laser fire. Imagine each saucer crashing to the ground, erupting into a mess of tangled, smoldering debris. Now QUICK!!! LOOK BEHIND YOU!!! SOMEONE’S COMING!!! Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you, but do you see what happened there? The imagined phenomena seemed to occur ‘outside’ of your body. Outside of your brain. So in a way there is no such thing as virtual space. Space is simply space. Everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

But if my imagination doesn’t exist inside of my head then where does it exist?

I have no bloody clue. If I knew that I would know why the hell I started writing this blog. I never imagined I would ever produce anything like this, but all of a sudden I was overtaken by ‘something’ and I couldn’t stop writing. It all just poured into me and I had to pour it all out. I tried and tried to rein it in, to reduce it to one pithy little article that summed up everything, but it refused to be contained. The damn details kept getting in the way.

Oh, hey, one more thing before you go riding off into the sunset…how do you know space is infinite?

Because I can see it.

What do you mean?

Just look in front of you. What do you see?

A computer screen.

What’s in front of that?

Some space. About a foot of space to be exact.

Just a foot? I beg to differ. Imagine yourself shrinking within that space, let’s say to a size so small that you could no longer see the light of the computer screen. A size so small that you could no longer perceive anything in the room. You’re surrounded by darkness. Not able to see anything. Hear anything. Feel anything. Touch anything. The computer screen would now seem to be billions upon billions of light-years away from you. Now imagine shrinking some more, like infinitely more, until that one foot became forever…